Mystifying Magic from The Haunted Mansion

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the opening of The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, we are pleased to reprint two of our favorite pieces of macabre magic: "The Miracle Rope Splice" and "Prediction of Suit & Value." With a little practice and a touch of bone-chilling patter, you can entertain your friends and family with these ghoulish delights!

These terrifying tricks come from a rare piece of early Haunted Mansion memorabilia — a fascinating magic-trick booklet entitled Magic From The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. It sold exclusively at the park beginning in 1970, the year after the attraction first opened. The booklet was so popular with guests that a second edition was published with an alternate cover featuring Merlin the Magician from the animated film The Sword in the Stone and a new title, Disneyland's Mystifying Magic Book.

Its pages are filled with fun and easy magic tricks paired with original artwork showing some of the attraction's 999 spooky spirits, including the Mansion's walled-up ghost performing a coin trick with his one "free" hand and a Madame Leota that looks oddly like Maleficent!

The booklet contains all kinds of tricks, including card, money, paper, mental, and handkerchief magic, as well as a ventriloquism lesson that gets its own final chapter. Also included is masterly advice from a ghostly magician named Phineas J. Pock: "You will find all the magic tricks in this book are easy to do and can be performed by the average child or adult. Just remember to read the 'effect' carefully and follow the 'secret' instructions step-by-step. The object of performing any trick is not to show your skill, but to mystify the person you are entertaining.

"Practice the method of doing the magic trick many, many times before showing it to anyone. You will be able to mystify and entertain your spectator much easier if you don't have to think how you have to do it. Remember, practice, practice, practice.

"Most important," Pock continues, "never tell or show how you do your magic tricks. This takes away all the mystery and fun out of what you have just done. Keep it a secret, and you will always be respected as a good entertainer and a master magician."

EFFECTShow what appears to be two pieces of rope. Tie the two pieces of rope together and wrap them around your left hand. Pretend to take a little bit of "lizard lint" from your pocket. Sprinkle it over the rope and unwind it. It will have become one piece and the knot will have vanished.

SECRETUse one piece of rope about 24 inches in length and one about four to six inches in length. Loop the small piece of rope around the middle of the long piece (Fig.1). Now, hold both pieces in your left hand with the back of your hand facing your spectators. Conceal the loop with your left thumb, allowing the two ends of the short piece to extend above your hand (Fig. 2).

State that you are going to tie the two pieces of rope together. Actually tie the short piece around the middle of the long piece of rope. This will give the appearance that two medium-size pieces of rope are tied together end to end (Fig. 3). Grab the end of the rope with your right hand and slowly wrap around your left hand (Fig. 4).

When you come to the knot, let it slide down the rope, concealing it in your right hand. When it slides off the end, pretend to go into your pocket for the "lizard lint" and leave the knot in your pocket.

Act like you are sprinkling the "lizard lint" over the rope wrapped around your left hand. Unwind the rope, and it will now be one piece.

PREDICTION OF SUIT & VALUE

EFFECTHave a regular deck of cards shuffled. Take back the deck and run over the faces, counting the first 19 cards and making a mental note of the 19th card. Suppose it is the king of spades. Take out any other king from below the 19 cards and any spade card. Lay these aside, face down, without letting anyone see what they are. Tell the person you will use them as a prediction, the first card will denote the value and the second card will denote the suit.

SECRETLet the person draw three spot cards [not a picture card] openly, these also from below the 19 cards. Lay them out in a row with the highest cards to the left (example 7, 5, 3).

Request the person to write these figures down and underneath them write the same numbers in reverse and subtract (753–357=396). Now add these numbers across (3+9+6=18).

You hand the pack of cards to the person and instruct him to deal off 18 cards and turn up the next card. It will be, of course, the king of spades.

You now turn over the two prediction cards, king and spade card. Any three figures will magically add to 18 when treated in the same manner.

You were about to be in trouble though, cause I thought this was giving away Haunted Mansion secrets. There's a certain thing that everyone knows in the Mansion, that is supposedly done by a very old trick and it's one of those things I do this to